My talk for researchEdHome

1. How to pay
attention
researchEDHome
7th May 2020 @DavidDidau

2. What is attention?
Attention “is the taking possession by the
mind, in clear and vivid form, of one out of
what may seem several simultaneously
possible objects or trains of thought. …It
implies withdrawal from some things in
order to deal effectively with others.”
William James, The Principles of Psychology, 1890

3. Four types of attention
- Selective: blocking out distractions
- Sustained: prolonged, effortless immersion
- Executive: monitoring progress
- Divided: ‘multitasking’

4. Task switching
Start
Switching
penalty
Start
Task
One
Task
Two
Switching
penalty
Re-start
Image credit: Paul Kirschner
Switching between two
or more processes
requiring attention
- Schema switching
- Reinstatement
searches
- Loss of time / more
mistakes
Kirschner & De Bruyckere (2017)

5. The Colours Test

6. The Colours Test
BLUE GREEN RED PURPLE BLACK
PURPLE BLACK BLUE GREEN RED
GREEN RED BLACK BLUE PURPLE

7. The Stroop Effect
Stroop (1935)

8. 3 key points
Attention is…
- limited (correlated with working memory)
Srna et al (2018)
- selective (we don’t know what we ignore)
Muller et al (2016)
- orientated towards novelty
Hortsmann & Herwig (2015)

9. The consequences of
task-switching
Heavy media multitaskers are:
- Slower detecting changes in visual patterns
- More susceptible to false recollections
- Slower task-switching
- More easily distracted
- Less grey matter in brain regions associated
with controlling attention.
Ophir et al. (2009) & Loh and Kanai (2014)

10. Right brain / left brain
But, the brain is divided into hemispheres and the
role of corpus collosum seems to be for one side to
inhibit the other.
Why?

11. Back to attention
- A bird has to be
able to distinguish
seed from gravel
- It has to
simultaneously be
alert for predators
- Left hemisphere maintains narrow focus
- Right hemisphere remains broadly vigilant.
Watanabe et al (1995) & Aust & Huber (2003)

12. How we pay attention
Left: narrow,
sharply focused
attention to detail
The known
Right: sustained,
open, broad,
vigilant alertness
The unknown
If our focus is too
close everything
is blurred
If our focus is
too distant we
can’t read
In order to pay attention to detail we inhibit
information supplied by our right hemisphere
We make simplified models of reality.

13. What about intuition?
Tacit knowing “perception… constitutes an
observation of external facts without recourse to
formal argument”
Polanyi Meaning p. 34
- What happens when you read this sentence?
- Хо различно ли е да четеш това изречение?
- Sentence is about what reading different this?
Our awareness is “subsidiary”.

14. ‘Attention’ vs ‘noticing’
- Intuition is the emergence of knowledge without
conscious retrieval
- We pay attention to details which trigger our
“subsidiary” awareness of something un-distilled
in long-term memory
- This insight causes us to notice – to take in the
detail and perceive the whole
- But, “we know more than we can tell.”

15. Attention vs noticing
Can we improve the quality of students’ noticing by
guiding their attention and carefully adding to
schematic knowledge at just the right moment?
Can we help students to pay attention to insight?

16. Noticing in action
Except for the Marabar Caves – and they are
twenty miles off – the city of Chandrapore
presents nothing extraordinary.
How does the meaning change if we move the main
clause to the beginning of the sentence?
This is the first sentence of E.M. Forster’s novel, A
Passage to India. What do you notice?
The city of Chandrapore presents nothing
extraordinary, except for the Marabar Caves,
and they are twenty miles off.

17. Noticing in action
Except for the Marabar Caves – and they are
twenty miles off – the city of Chandrapore
presents nothing extraordinary.
Except for the Marabar Caves
And they are twenty miles off
The city of Chandrapore
Presents nothing extraordinary.
What happens if we pay attention to the stresses of
the sentence?

18. Noticing in action
Except for the Marabar Caves – and they are
twenty miles off – the city of Chandrapore
presents nothing extraordinary.
What can we guess about the narrator’s view of India?
What type of writing does this sentence remind us of?
Context:
- The novel was written in 1924
- India was still part of the British Empire
- The sentence is similar to one we might find in
contemporary guidebooks
- Forster was a fierce critic of colonial government and
supported Indian independence.
What expectations do you have of the novel?

19. Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.
My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.
He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound’s the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.
The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.
This is ‘Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening’ by Robert Frost.
What do you notice?
English has 44 phonemes:
- 20 vowel sounds (long
or sort)
- 24 consonant sounds
(voiced, unvoiced)
Voiced Unvoiced
Plosives b, d, g p, t, k
Fricatives v, th (as in
breath)
f, th (as in
this)
Sibilants z s, sh
Glottal h
Affricates j ch
nasal m, n, ng
glides w, wh, y
liquids l, r
What types of sound are
used in stanza 1? How
might this link to the
mood?
How do the sounds change
in stanza 2? Does this
reflect a change of mood?
Do the sounds change
again in stanza 3?
What is the mood now?
Reread the final stanza
What do you notice?

20. Key points
1. It’s hard enough to pay attention (task switching)
2. Our brains are aware of 2 modes of reality at the
same time but…
3. …our attention inhibits our wider awareness
4. Through guiding attention – and carefully adding
to schema – we can improve the quality of
attention and…
5. …help students get better at noticing meaning.

21. Further reading
- Michael Polanyi and Harry Prosch, Meaning
- Michael Oakeshott, The Voice of Poetry in the
Conversation of Mankind
- Iain McGilchrist, The Master and his Emissary:
The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western
World
- Terry Eagleton, How to Read English Literature.

22. @DavidDidau
learningspy.co.uk
ddidau@gmail.com
“It is so easy to be wrong – and to persist in
being wrong – when the costs of being wrong
are paid by others.” Thomas Sowell